


In dulci jubilo

by Aeshna etonensis (GMWWemyss)



Series: Modest Proposals [3]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: All I Want For Christmas Is Love Actually, Cat, Christmas, Christmas Dinner, Christmas Fluff, Church of England, Dogs, Future Fic, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M, Sheep, Village life, mixed marriage, panto, part-retirement, poultry, religious sensibilities, rurality, the Peak District, the Shipping Forecast, the corpus of English hymnody, the corpus of English letters and lit, the corpus of English poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 11:18:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2771060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GMWWemyss/pseuds/Aeshna%20etonensis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twelve years on, free and out and under new management, and owning a rural retreat (with a studio built on), Zayn and Liam are preparing to have the rest of the lads to stop for Christmas.</p><p>And if Niall’s family’s flight is delayed, and Haz and The Tommo are running late because their youngest sicked up in the car again, well, Liam has an idea for getting their own sprogs out of the house, and for how he and Zayn can pass the extra time....</p>
            </blockquote>





	In dulci jubilo

**Author's Note:**

> Bach and Eliot and Lancelot Andrewes, and Radio 4 and the Book of Common Prayer: I have unblushingly plundered everything that was not nailed down and snapped up all manner of unconsidered trifles (including Harry’s sherry trifle, for pudding after the goose and spuds and sprouts) to make this Christmas indulgence. (If this effusion of sentimentality has any merit it may claim, it is, surely, that it is at least thoroughly British.) I am obliged to Layne for promoting Giselle’s irresistible fest and thus calling it to my attention.
> 
> The names on the local war memorials, by the way (and this is important), are accurate.

* * *

Twelve years. Twelve worldwide Number One albums. No end in sight.

A six-year-old son _(for unto us...)_ and a four- – _I’m very nearly_ five, _Baba_ – a four-year-old daughter _(blessed above women...)._ Twenty acres, these eight years past, in a rural retreat in the Peak, the Moorlands where Staffs and Derbs meet and kiss in righteousness and peace. Three dogs, a rather aloof and disdainful cat who turned on the charm when he wanted something and who (accordingly) reminded them more each day of The Tommo, a dozen chickens (Old English Pheasant Fowl), a few equally hardy ducks (Shetlands), and a small flock of tough Derbyshire Gritstone sheep. Oh: and – children being children – an English Spot rabbit: very much _indoors_.

A few hives of honeybees, now in Winter clustered snug in their sheltered hives, but all the same given a wide berth by the children, the cat, and the dogs – and by Zayn. (Trust Liam, in season, to don the suit and the veil and get stuck in.)

An OBE apiece, and a broad hint that the New Year Honours List should bump those up to CBEs.

Contented parents and, effectively, in-laws (and outlaws); nieces and nephews and, incredibly, married sisters (and weren’t they all of them, _all,_ far too young for that only yesterday?).

Pantos and ceremonial switchings-on of the village and town Christmas lights; fairs and markets, and carollings. (Yes, panto; and, yes, Zayn and Liam both had played their parts – _Oh, no they hadn’t! Oh, yes they had!_ – even unto appearing as Widow Twankey, and for that matter Alderman Fitzwarren and Idle Jack _and_ Whittington’s bloody Cat. In not a few specified years, though, they’d been shouldered aside, upstaged, and generally done out of the roles, to their considerable relief, by one of their very dearest friends – _he’s behind you!_ –, one Louis Tomlinson.) And, in other seasons, fêtes and well-dressings, openings and ribbon-cuttings and appeals; charidee marathons, fell-runs, community projects....

School governorships, as well, and being co-opted into filling vacancies on the council, and acting as patrons of this, that, and the other thing.

And, every November when they were not on tour, Remembrance Sunday. They knew, now, every name on the memorials, in Buxton (Channings and Eyres and Keelings) as in Leek (from Pte Thomas Addy, the South Staffordshires, to three young men of the Yates family, none of whom should see his twentieth year, dead at Loos, at Ypres, and at Arras); in Leek – Sir Arthur Nicholson’s grand memorial dominating the town – as in Longnor (Gunner Caley and Bombardier Wardle, and two Tunnicliffes, and a brace of Rileys; a Gould and a Mellor, a Robinson and a Slack, a Wheeldon and a Lownds, and four from the Hitler War after, Driver Belfield RE and L/Bdr Horobin RA and Pte Turner, the King’s Regiment (Liverpool), and Gunner Grindey RHA); and knew the descendants of those, the Glorious Dead, and their stories.

With Wintertide, however, the rhythms of life – even with the Christmas bustle – were slower, rather a ballad than a stadium anthem rocking out. These were days of careful consideration of what to plant come January: antirrhinum and lavender, sweet-pea and verbena (the geranium and the laurentia already laid, like Dido – _thy hand, Belinda_ – in December earth, but in sure and certain hope of flowering resurrection); broad bean, shallot, tomato, and cabbage.... There were those, perhaps, who found it unlikely that Liam, broad-shouldered Liam, who handled the beasts and the muck, should have charge of the flower garden, although always subject to Zayn’s artist’s eye, whilst Zayn got his hands happily dirty planting-out the veg.: but they’d never been conventional, or had any use for roles and labels and stereotypes.

Much more often than five times a day in formal prayer was Zayn thankful to the All-Wise and All-Merciful for that; and far more often even than that gratitude was he thankful for all that he had, beginning with Liam and the children, and for the change of management which had made all of it and all their freedoms, and their acquisition of a rural bolt-hole in the Peak District of North Staffs, just halfway between Wolvo and Bradford, possible.

It had been the Establishment had bullied Modest in selling their contract; had set them free, made them free of the corridors where influence was wielded without the want of raised voices, and taught them to switch codes, to speak and to dress so as to be taken seriously when that was wanted; had encouraged and managed their comings-out and bullied the industry in their behalves (and ensured The Tommo _did_ get his hands on Donny Rovers after all, in the end: _you_ shall _go to the ball..._ ). Nor Zayn nor Liam had counted the cost, at the time, yet Zayn had wondered what the price might be. He had not guessed, then, that the price – the rent for living – was simple service: but, that lesson learnt, he and Liam were determined to teach it, to Joe and to Molly – Yusuf Geoffrey Walter and Mariam Patricia Malala – and the the children yet to come. They’d be Deputy Lieutenants yet before they died, he knew: and he was resigned to it; and even unofficially, if the price of freedom were, as it seemed to be, acting as understudy to Rutlands and Devonshires and Dartmouths and Harrowbys, then their patronising charities and laying wreaths of poppies, and staying awake at meetings and conferences concerned with the governance of Buxton & Leek College and the whole plan of FE in the Peak, was a small price to pay, and well worth the paying.

But that, reflected Zayn, was a topic for a sterner time. His three children – for in Advent in the countryside especially, Liam became the four-year-old he had not had the chance of being when he had _been_ four years old ( _lully, lullay_ ) – were larking about in the snow and frost, and the dogs larking with them; but they’d not, surely, be out in the sharp weather much longer, and soon they’d tumble through the door, shedding snow and gilets and quilted jackets and boots and wool, Barbour and Boden, to swarm the Aga-warmed kitchen, red-cheeked and laughing and clamouring for biscuits and cocoa to huddle over by the great, roaring fire.

Well, why not, thought Zayn: they may as well get what they may whilst they may, with Nialler and his family due that afternoon. _The ways deep and the weather sharp, the very dead of winter...._ Even if Haz and Louis and their brood were (as always: the only thing Haz loved more than fatherhood and infants was showing off his baking skills) arriving after tea laden with mince pies – and palmiers, and sherry trifle, and shortbread, and Christmas pudding, and figgy pudding, and gingerbread _Dijonnais_ (a _pain d’_ _é_ _pices_ which might well include long pepper, and what, Zayn should like to know, was wrong with simple North Country _parkin,_ Hazza, hmm?) and … well, it was best not to speculate, really.

Chances were, too, that the weather ( _in the bleak mid-Winter_ ) should turn, as it commonly did ( _see amid the Winter’s snow_ ), for all that Christmas came upon a midnight clear, and should leave the house stuffing full of Horans and Tomlinson-Styleses as well as his own dear ones, and delay the Boxing Day arrivals of Maliks and Paynes. Well, the old farmhouse should withstand weather and guests alike, as it had for centuries, before and since its mellow stone had had its Georgian-era facelift; and there was goose and mutton and grouse (Haddon Hall and Chatsworth had sent each the customary Christmas compliment, in return for honey and lamb and good service), bangers vegetarian and bangers chicken and bangers lamb; there were apples, and potatoes, sprouts and pears and local cheeses, eggs fresh every morning by duck and hen, parsnips and chestnuts and all (carrots were right out: Lou was not yet over that regrettable topic). And Fentiman’s, for Zayn and the children, and honest English beer and ale, and whisky and brandy and wines. They could withstand a siege, were the weather to besiege them, _on a cold winter’s night that was so deep_.

Not that it wanted wild weather to leave them with house-guests who stopped for a day and stayed on for a month: much of the Summertide, recalled Zayn with a wry grin, had been spent in trying to shift Ed from their professional-grade recording studio, with which – along with the children and the farm and several excellent meals a day – he’d long since fallen wholly in love. (And, frankly, he and Liam both were exceeding inclined to begin charging Andy, Ant, and Danny _rent_ ... or should do were it not that the buggers were already paying it in kind by minding the children when they stopped in Summer and Liam and Zayn had other duties, or were desperate for a break.) As for Haz-and-Lou, and Nialler, well, they’d all of them never ceased living in one another’s pockets, and Zayn saw no prospect of their ever doing, even when they should have become, what time the children were up at university, the Stones of their generation, what Liam had dubbed ‘OAP Direction’.

All the same, Zayn rather hoped the weather should remain clear until – if possible, through – Boxing Day (thus leaving Haz-and-Lou in particular no excuse to stay on, and clearing the house for the children’s grandparents’ arrival); and certainly through Christmas Eve and Christmas Day itself. (A man could hope.... _There are warnings of gales in all areas except Biscay and Trafalgar … the General Synopsis at 0600...._ ) The children had been made free from the beginning of both sides of their heritage, and both traditions, and should choose for themselves when of age; Zayn knew well enough the strictures on participating in other traditions, even those of the Peoples of the Book, but saw no harm and much good in allowing their Daddy to take them to church on these festivals (with a neutral but indulgent Uncle Harry and a surprisingly devout Uncle Niall, who was getting more conventionally Catholic by the day as he aged), whilst their Baba stopped at home with Uncle Lou (although, purely aesthetically, Zayn did miss the music). And, at their ages, Joe and Molly thought more of Father Christmas at this season than of Maryam _Mustafia_ and of the prophet Isa her son, _al-Masīḥ_ , in any case.

Frankly, reflected Zayn, the only annoying thing about Christmas, and about a _family_ Christmas, and about a _family_ Christmas _with young children in the house,_ was the lack of opportunity for a good shag. The season was always specially kind to Liam, filling him with exaltation and childlike excitement ( _I_ won’t _act my age_ ); its cold reddening his cheeks to cider apples and a rose e’er blooming, and its cutting winds tousling his hair, Winter fining him keen as he revelled in working and playing strenuously out of doors, the work which had made the old farmhouse ready for Christmas, firewood and bough and wreath, _the holly and the ivy...._ It wasn’t only earth, in a bleak mid-Winter, was hard as iron, or frosty winds alone which made moan: Zayn loved Liam in Springtide as the sap rose and in Summer when he grew golden as barley and in Autumntide when he coloured russet as the leaves, but Winter Liam especially made Zayn’s heart – and other organs – swell – in diapason. Unfair, really, that this festive season put such a damper upon their....

Zayn, lost in thought, jumped suddenly and failed to suppress a yelp, indeed a skelloch, at suddenly feeling small children wrapt ’round his knees and a cold, familiar nose – _not_ belonging to one of the dogs, but rather to that human puppy he’d pledged his life to – pressed into his nice warm neck.

Liam, predictably, managed that combined giggle and shrug only he could pull off. ‘Must’ve been deep in thought if you didn’t hear me _and_ the little savages come in.’ The said savages were already thundering up the staircase: Zayn was rather afraid to ask why.

Breathing hard, he buried his own head, for a change, in Liam’s neck. The carol of the season … well, he liked to pretend their sprogs were, in fact, ‘little one sweet’ and ‘little one mild’, but they _were_ savages, honestly.

‘Niall and his have only _just_ touched down in Manc,’ said Liam. He sounded – although, thought Zayn, that couldn’t possibly be right – almost smug. ‘Missed their train, they’ll have done; ’ll be late getting to Buxton. And Lou rang, also: they’re delayed as well.’ _‘It was no summer progress. A cold coming they had of it at this time of the year, just the worst time of the year to take a journey, and specially a long journey. The ways deep, the weather sharp, the days short, the sun farthest off, in_ solsitio brumali, _“the very dead of winter”’...._

Zayn thought for a moment. ‘Oh! Joan got car-sick, like?’ He sympathised, he really did.

Liam gurned, a bit (Zayn swore that lower lip’d be the death of him yet). ‘ _Very._ With _abandon._ Before they got past the gate. Poor mite.

‘All the same,’ said Liam, leadingly. ‘Mrs Keeling is willing to take Joe and Molly to the kiddies’ do at the Village Hall, now, as they needn’t be home now quite so early; she’s on her way, in fact.’ The same tone was back in Liam’s voice, one of positive gloating. Zayn realised, after, he’d been rather thick, but, with his mind full of guests and arrivals and delays and putting dinner back, he really did not twig just then. His one inconsequent thought was, instead, of the year prior, when the Rector, a well-meaning if sometimes brick-dropping cleric, had roped him into giving a talk down the Village Hall to all the youths of the District, of all backgrounds, on the life of Jinnah, whose birthday was, after all, 25 December also. (Trust the C of E to parade its character for tolerance....)

‘So ... I thought,’ added Liam, invitingly, ‘I could seize the opportunity, give you an early present.’

Zayn blinked.

Grinning – he was well-used to the fact that having the cleverest of partners sometimes meant having a partner who wasn’t altogether _there_ at times, lost in his own head – Liam spelt it out. ‘Mrs Keeling’ll be here in five minutes, love. Our Kids’ll be away for two hours. Our bandmates and their families’ll not be here for at least an hour after that, anyroadup. So: Mrs K arrives in five minutes. Within _seven_ minutes, love, I’m going to have you upstairs and in bed, on your back, naked as ambition, legs spread, with me tongue up your –’

The children barrelled downstairs, clamouring excitedly that they’d seen Mrs Keeling from their windows, and she was turning in at the gate _now,_ and, Baba, Daddy, help them get their coats on, they’d be _late...._

Seven minutes after precisely, Zayn got what, or rather who, he wanted for Christmas, the only gift he wanted then or ever, and a gift that – stamina is _not_ for twenty-year-olds only, it appeared – kept on giving. _In dulci jubilo,_ beneath the cold, infinite Pennine skies; _Alpha est et O._

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Raise your hand if you really, really want to see Zayn and Liam alternating as Widow Twankey in the local panto.
> 
> PS: Everyone has been so very kind and obliging. Previous pieces in this fandom, including two pieces, the two most recent as of this writing, which give the background to this tale, are being moved to this nom de clavier d’ordinateur for the sake of convenience, as they were, being under the other name, hitherto and for good reasons available only to registered users.


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